


Our Saving Grace

by VenetaPsi



Series: A Scream and a Dream [2]
Category: Lunch Club, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alliances, Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst, Angst and Feels, Arena (Hunger Games), Careers (Hunger Games), Character Death, Character Study, District 7 (Hunger Games), F/M, Friendship, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hunger Games, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, Light Romance, Main Character Grace Safford, Male-Female Friendship, Urban Arena, soft romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:55:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24130942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenetaPsi/pseuds/VenetaPsi
Summary: She felt cold as her hand was released, and she was guided to face her district partner.Charlie looked scared. Openly so, and Grace so rarely had seen anything but a smile on the boy’s face. It was okay.She was scared too.
Relationships: Charlie Dalgleish & Grace Safford, Charlie Dalgleish/Grace Safford
Series: A Scream and a Dream [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1741147
Comments: 5
Kudos: 32





	Our Saving Grace

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [on a roll of the dice (a story from floor 6)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23934958) by [everythingFangirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingFangirl/pseuds/everythingFangirl). 



> I suggest you read the first work first, as this as the same time from Grace's POV. Again, inspired by Havok's (and Everything's) lovely writing, but NOT set in the Floor 6 universe.

Grace Safford was not prepared for her name to be drawn out of the small glass ball that symbolized her death. 

In fact she hardly noticed her name ringing out across the area for a second because her attention was on the boy on stage; the boy with pale arms wrapped around himself, eyes darting across the crowd, body an open projection of confusion and fear. 

She knew Charlie. 

She’d grown up in the same grade as the boy. Working occasionally with him on school projects. Listening to him disrupt the whole lesson with a clever pun or a stupid joke that had their teacher looking about ready to beat the kid with a stick while the rest of the class only cheered on Charlie’s silliness. 

She’d watched curiously as Charlie, Condi, and Jared became friends; as Nate and Zach joined them, as the group began to drift around as a unit; laughing and making games and chasing each other through the streets. 

Her name echoed in her ears, and the girl next to her hesitantly touched her arm. 

Only then did Grace look away from the boy- from  _ Charlie, _ who was staring back at her with wide-eyed fear. She looked at the man holding her small, neatly folded slip of paper, who called for her.

“Grace? Where is our lucky girl? Come forward, darling.”

The girl- Emily, Grace thought her name was- squeezed her arm gently. 

With that, she walked forward. The crowd parted for her like a wave as she walked towards the stage, climbed the stairs, and came to a stop on the man’s right. He reached out and grasped her hand, raising it in the air.

She caught him doing the same with Charlie’s in her peripheral. 

“The tributes of District 7!”

In that moment, Grace’s attention was caught not by the cameras or the pained clapping of the people in her district, but by four teens that were distinctly stiff, arms rebelliously at their sides. 

It was strange, in that moment, that she was more taken by the reaction of Charlie’s friends than wondering what her own family thought. 

She felt cold as her hand was released, and she was guided to face her district partner.

Charlie looked scared. Openly so, and Grace so rarely had seen anything but a smile on the boy’s face. It was okay.

She was scared too. 

She held out her hand for the customary handshake, and gave Charlie a tiny, unnoticeable grim nod of recognition. Of respect. 

Grace caught a tiny gleam in his eye- the smallest spark of rebellion as Charlie reached out, and his hand enveloped hers and they shook. They squeezed each other’s hands at the same time; giving each other a hint of strength, a hint of encouragement. 

Then their fingers slipped apart.

Grace looked out across the crowd, looked at the cameras, and steeled her resolve, swallowing down her fear. 

One step at a time.

\---

The Capital was overwhelming. Gleaming buildings, pastel colors, insane costumes. Riches and wealth beyond anything she’d ever seen in her forestry-dedicated district. Upon arriving, she was thrust into the arms of a group who’d job was to make her look less like a dirty farm girl and more like a deadly princess. A competitor. 

The scrubbed her and cleaned her, cut her hair and filed her nails and finally dressed her up in a tunic of many layers of soft brown fabric and tight pants that hugged her legs. They draped a cape over her shoulders; mossy greens that she assumed were meant to symbolize leaves. They parted her hair and brushed it and braided it, weaving it together until it surrounded her head like a crown.

The entire time she watched in the mirror, numb, as her previous life was stripped away, until she looked like everyone else in this godforsaken city. 

Then they led her down to a large cavern full of carriages and horses and other competitors. She saw Charlie. The boy was equally as cleaned, and similarly dressed; green clothes wrapping around his form and a cloak of oranges and reds hanging from his shoulders. He looked up when she approached, and she saw a crown on his head. Twisted twigs that formed a woven, brown wreath atop his pale hair. 

_ “You are the princess and prince of your district’s forest,” _ Their Mentor told them as they two were herded up onto the carriage built like the forest floor.  _ “Act like it.” _

__ They stood side by side, both out of their depth, both shaking in their boots. As the carriages began to roll, district by district towards the large doors to be paraded in front of the Capital spectators, Charlie offered his hand. 

To an outsider, the gesture might appear stoic, purposeful. Haughty, perhaps. But Grace saw the eyes of a scared boy gazing into her, pleading. She took Charlie’s hand, squeezing his cold fingers in her own and letting their joined grip hang between them. 

To an outsider, it might’ve looked like a prince and a princess, cold and distant, but joined by circumstance. 

To them, it was a small spot of warmth, of familiarity, of unison in this chaos. 

No amount of preparation could scrub the calluses from Charlie’s hand, the roughness born from years of tree climbing and playing with sticks and stones. 

Grace focused on that tiny spark from home, felt the roughness of twine brush her wrist from where it hung around Charlie’s. 

They rolled out in front of the crowd, were bombarded with cheers and shrieks and whistles. 

Charlie’s grip tightened, and she squeezed back. Determined. 

Grace looked up at the crowd of people she despised and smiled. 

\---

The arena made her almost wish to be back in the Capital, back under those judgmental, sadistic eyes if only it meant she was safe. 

Now she ran, sword in hand, a small bag in the other, tearing down the street as the sounds of fighting and screaming reached her ears from behind, as she fled the Cornucopia desperately. Her mind was stuck on the image of Charlie, standing on his plate, staring down at the ground below him as though frozen even as everyone else ran or tore forwards towards the precious supplies. 

She glanced over her shoulder, breath heaving, but he was gone, his place in the ring empty. 

She ran, and didn’t know if the boy was alive or dead. 

  
  
  


Grace was eight stories up in a building when the cannon shots for the bloodbath began to ring out across the arena. Eleven of them echoed; one after another. Eleven corpses cooling on the concrete. Eleven lives lost. 

She settled against a support pillar of her building, staring out through the open gap that was a window at the city around. Watching the empty streets. She felt so tired. 

Thirteen tributes left. Twelve, not including herself. 

The sword felt clumsy, heavy in her unpracticed hands. The bag on her back was too light and too heavy at the same time, and her throat burned with a need for water. Still, she didn’t move, watching a lifeless landscape of stone and asphalt. 

Grace swallowed around a sandpaper tongue and headed for the stairs. 

\---

She shrunk back into the shadows, listening as the male and female voice she’d been following stopped short, seemingly holding their position. She feared the two District 1 tributes- the ones who’d been trained to fight, who respected the games. Grace wasn’t sure what part of her prompted the urge to follow them. Surely it was safer to run. 

The voices rose up again, and continued moving, and she watched the two silhouetted figures; the girl with a spear taller then herself and the boy with a sword that matched her own, clenched tightly in her hand as her back pressed into the metal corner of a building, as she watched the two make their way down the street. 

The Ones were casual, talking amicably. Her blood boiled. This really was a game to them. A sport. They were hunting. 

Her fingers ached where they clenched around her blade. 

All at once the figures stopped again, both staring down an alley. Grace noticed the shift in their posture, how they readied for a fight and something cold shot down Grace’s spine. 

Before she could take a step, the girl reared back and flung her spear; powerfully, deadly. The clang of it hitting brick echoed through the air as sharp as a gunshot, and Grace saw the two sprint down the alley before she herself turned and ran in the opposite direction, hoping whoever they were chasing got away from the two careers. 

\---

Two days later, Grace stared up at the newly night sky, watching the face of the now-deceased District 1 girl projected in the sky. 

\---

She heard footsteps ahead of her. Grace pulled up short, listening, drawing her sword from the makeshift carrier she’d secured to her hip. She peered around the corner, and saw a figure in the shadows; knife in hand, bag on his back. He was looking around at the walls as though searching for something. 

Grace didn’t think, she simply moved, sprinting forward, and she saw the man whirl, dagger raised and she swung her sword down with all her might. His knife caught her blade and parried it, knocking the blow aside, and Grace stared in shock at Charlie’s familiar face, body freezing. 

For a second they simply stood there, shocked. 

Then her sword clattered to the ground and she flung herself forward without thinking, enveloping the boy in a tight hug. Logically, she’d known Charlie was alive- after all, his face had never appeared in the sky. But still, seeing the joking kid relatively unharmed made something in her loosen. 

Her one bit of home was okay.

Charlie clutched her back, pulling her closer, and she mumbled out something about an alliance, choking on a mix of strained laughter and tears. 

He agreed quietly, and held her. 

  
  
  


They continued down the alley, weapons back in hand, and Charlie pointed at the brick walls on either side- mentioned that there were “carrot things of some kind’ that grew in tiny pockets in between bricks. He showed Grace a little burrow of the thing, yellowish tubers, and she bit into one warily. It was overwhelmingly sweet, sweeter than a carrot by far, and she grimaced. 

Charlie smiled grimly, and bit into one himself. 

\---

As the day progressed, Grace took stock of Charlie. There was a slash in his pant leg; she could see greying bandages through the small tear in the black fabric, and brownish stains where blood had once been. The bag on his back was familiar; the same grey and black pattern she’d seen on the shoulder of the girl from District 1, the girl with the spear. 

Charlie was different. Though Grace knew she was different as well, so she couldn’t very well judge him. But the boy was quieter. His smiles were bitter and harsh, and he didn’t laugh. 

She was sharper and angrier, didn’t smile and often glared. 

They were not the same people they had been only five days before. 

Charlie showed her a small vile from One’s bag; a small glass tube of greenish, bubbling liquid. ‘Toxic’, he warned her. ‘Dangerous. Spreads like wildfire and burns the skin like acid.’

She handed him the similar vile from her own bag and didn’t ask how he knew. 

\---

A few nights later, they sat on the roof of a building overlooking a sea of slightly shorter structures. The night air was cold, and they sat with their sides pressed together, sharing warmth. 

“There’s no trees,” Charlie said softly, almost mournfully. Grace gave his shoulder a small nudge with her own, and he nudged her back. 

“We could climb a lamp post,” She offered half-heartedly, and she was rewarded with a half-smile. 

“Carrot?” He offered, holding out a root he’d withdrawn from his pocket. She took it and bit out a large chunk, more accustomed to the painfully sweet taste. 

They sat in silence, listening to the gentle hum of the night breeze, and his arm found it’s way around her shoulders, holding her closer. As though he needed the comfort more than what he was trying to offer her. Grace let her arm slide around Charlie’s waist, and they sat together. A little bubble of home. 

“One of us is going back,” Grace whispered, and after a second, Charlie nodded grimly. 

“We’ll make sure of it,” He said softly, resolutely. And in that moment, their little pact was formed. 

_ One of us. _

\---

They stood side by side at the edge of the Cornucopia, watching the girl and boy that mirrored them on the other side of the clearing. The two tributes from District 8 that watched them equally. 

The only four remaining in the arena. 

For such a stand off, the day was eerily beautiful. Bright, warm sunlight and a cloudless sky. The metal of the nearby buildings shone brightly, the cobblestone illuminated below their feet. 

District 8 charged. 

What followed was a blur. For all her time in the arena, Grace had never fought, and the sword was more of a hindrance than a weapon. But the girl from Eight didn’t know how to fight either- so Grace went for her. 

In a way she never would have dreamed herself capable of, Grace ferociously swung at the girl, knocking the scythe from her hand as she reared back with a shriek. The girl landed on her ass on the cement, arms raised as all the fight left her system and converted into defense. 

“Please,  _ no, don’t-” _ She shrieked, cowering, and still Grace brought the blade down, hacking at the girl until she was a motionless body in a pool of blood, as Grace stabbed with the sword over and over; the voices of Charlie and the other man ringing in her ears. 

She stared down at Eight, numb, body trembling until Charlie’s scream shattered the stillness, and she became suddenly aware of a terrible growing pain in her stomach. 

Grace looked down and saw the blade protruding from her middle, cold steel sparkling with a beautiful crimson in the sunlight. 

The sword was yanked out of her and she sank to the ground slowly, like molasses, her own sword clattering to the cement. 

She lay there, dizzy, drifting in and out of consciousness. There was warm blood all around her, under her, coating her hands and she didn’t know if it was Eight’s or her own. She stared up at the sky, watching the soft blue she remembered seeing through the trees at home, until a cannon filled her ears. 

Until Charlie rushed to her side, pressing his hands atop her own, bent over him. 

She looked up at his shaded face, at his pale hair that glowed a soft gold at the edges as the sun backlit him. The laughing boy of her childhood was gone, and in his place she saw a torn, hurt, ruined young man. 

“Did you...win…?” She forced out, lips heavy and clumsy. His eyes were pained, and he bent closer. 

“Yeah,” he whispered, and she listened to his voice, his composure, crack. “Yeah. I’m so...I’m sorry Grace, I-”

Charlie’s voice was soft and pained, and she thought of a scared boy on that stage, hugging himself. A laughing kid hanging from a tree branch, shirt pooled around his chest, smiling at her. A grim young man with a bag that wasn’t his and a grip that enveloped her. 

“Charlie,” She shushed, cutting off his fumbled apologies, because she was okay with this. One of them was going home. Grace leaned up, and it was difficult- her body was weighted like lead. But she pressed her lips to his to silence him, to reassure him that this was alright. She accepted this. 

His body was warm against her as her ears began to ring, as her vision went fuzzy, and she shrunk downwards, eyes shutting.

For Grace Safford, everything went black. 


End file.
